HoboSapiens

HoboSapiens answers the \"whatever happened to\" questions of both dorm room denizens peeling the\n\
banana for the first time ...

HoboSapiens answers the "whatever happened to" questions of both dorm room denizens peeling the
banana for the first time and John Cale lifers who finally threw in the towel for good with the release
of 1996's bloated, overproduced "pop" album, Walking on Locusts. Cale's been biding his time,
of course, obsessively studying the umbrella-strawed, shaved-ice recordings coming out of the current
London dance-music scene, and gearing up for his own grand re-entrance into the 21st Century.

Produced by Lemon Jelly's Nick Franglen (Björk, Primal Scream, Pulp), HoboSapiens finds Cale, at 61,
back in the major leagues (on EMI) and undeniably re-energized by his newfound musical palette, marrying his
down-and-dirgey muse to music that's buzzy, dense and eclectic. On his own website, Cale talks about his
recent appreciation for Beck and The Beta Band, and the influence of the latter, presumably, is evident on
the sexy, summertime acoustic pop track "Things", by far the album's catchiest song. Of course, the lyrics
remain as dour and abstruse as ever, but, for better or worse, this time he's not weeping them out alone at
the piano. The opening lines of the first song, "Zen", a grim manifesto delivered de facto in Cale's
ageless and immutable brood, offer a thematic crib sheet for the entire record: "It's midnight/ And our
silver-tongued obsessions come at us out of the dark."

Pretty sonic landscapes whiz by as you cruise through the album: strangely out-of-tune bells, sumptuous
string sections, lachrymose violas, impossibly resonant keyboards, treated voices, whole choirs. Odd drum
samples and stray bits of post-industrial electronic noise provide the pervasive background radiation which
adds an air of doom-and-gloom to even the most airy, melodic songs. About half of it works reasonably well,
though the end result is somehow closer to Low-era Bowie or Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain than
anything truly contemporary or avant-garde. There really is only one cringe-worthy track, "Twilight Zone",
which finds Cale yowling and haranguing over "beats" so ostentatiously "trip-hoppy" that you feel embarrassed
to listen, like your dad had wandered drunkenly into your karaoke party and insisted on taking a turn at
the mic. (And that's overlooking the dog-tiredness of the song's title conceit.)

If your trendometer has jumped into the red, that's not a malfunction. But Cale's perverse and singular
worldview, and the effortless authority with which he dispenses his overwhelming musicality, spare him
from the worst-case scenarios one may associate with aging rock legends who seek to revitalize their careers
by hooking up with younger hotshot producers. The good news is, it still sounds like a John Cale album.
But the full-on return-to-form that some critics have been trumpeting is mostly just wishful thinking:
they're simply overjoyed to have Cale awake and fully alert again. And if nothing else, it's a step in
the right direction. Just for fun, I'll lay down a few dollars that say his next album's the one they've
been waiting for.